James Marr was a Boy Scout selected to go along with Sir Ernest Shackleton aboard the Quest in 1921 for the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition to Antarctica. This book provides a description of what would be Shackleton's last exploration due to his untimely death en route.
"If, in these pages, written in remembrance of my father, I should tell you, my dear friends, nothing new of him, I can, at least, promise you that what I shall tell will be told faithfully, if simply, and perhaps there may be some things not familiar to you." So begins chapter one of My Father as I Recall Him, the personal recollections of Mary Dickens, (Mamie, as she was called), the oldest daughter of the great novelist, Charles Dickens.
This work from 1901 predicts what technological developments will manifest in the twentieth century. The author, a technical journalist, presents ideas for inventions and new developments in the areas of power, transportation, agriculture, mining, domestic applications, electronic devices, warfare, music, art, and news. Many have come to pass. All of them provide an interesting look into how the next century was imagined and what challenges were anticipated for the progress of society.
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In this volume of adventure the author depicts the lives of certain humble modern heroes whose unconscious courage ordinarily goes unnoticed. Mr. Moffett
has chosen unusual and picturesque careers, and has offered dramatic scenes from the lives of the steeple climber, the diver, the balloonist,the pilot, the bridge builder, the fireman, the aerial acrobat, the wild animal trainer, the dynamite worker and lastly the locomotive driver.
An alphabet of historical characters presented in poetical form! In their original form, the contents of this
book appeared in the Chicago Sunday Tribune,
which newspaper is hereby thanked for
the privilege of reproducing this Alphabet
An alphabet of historical characters presented in poetical form!
Warner's thoughtful and often humorous memoir of his life as a young farm-boy in Charlemont, Massachusetts.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark - In the years 1804, 1805, and 1806, two men commanded an expedition which explored the wilderness that stretched from the mouth of the Missouri River to where the Columbia enters the Pacific,
and dedicated to civilization a new empire. Their names were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. This book relates that adventure from it's inception through it's completion as well as the effect the expedition had upon the history of the United States.
John Bunyan (November 28, 1628 – August 31, 1688), a Christian writer and preacher, was born at Harrowden (one mile south-east of Bedford), in the Parish of Elstow, England. He wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, arguably the most famous published Christian allegory. In the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August.
Bunyan became a popular preacher as well as a prolific author, though most of his works consist of expanded sermons. In theology he was a Puritan, but there was nothing gloomy about him. The portrait his friend Robert White drew, which has often been reproduced, shows the attractiveness of his true character.
This pamphlet was published in the early 20th century by the United States Rubber Company so that "coming generations of our country ... have some understanding of the importance of rubber in our every day life... We believe the rubber industry will be better off if the future citizens of our country know more about it." Learn about Christopher Columbus's discovery of rubber, how the crafty British entrepreneur, Wickham, managed to smuggle rubber seedlings out of Brazil, and how rubber manufacturing came to be a "peculiarly American industry." The myriad uses of rubber from a century ago are also elaborated in considerable detail - everything from submarines to Keds to dentures.
Jacob Abbott chronicles the unspeakably treacherous rise of Richard III to the throne of England in the midst of the war between the Yorks and the Lancasters and his ultimate fall on the Field of Bosworth.
Doubleday chronicles the history of everyday inventions that form the foundation of technology now common through the world. While some of the inventions are no longer used, each example shows how inventors contributed to technology through perseverance, inspiration and clever observations. In each chapter, he gives a clear, understandable background of the technology.
Many of the now outdated inventions may have inspired later inventions by meeting emerging demands. For example, Edison's filament bulb is now being phased out by more efficient CFL's, but Edison's contribution to indoor lighting likewise removed the need for inefficient gas-burning lamps. While trains for carrying mail and freight have largely been replaced by more nimble semi trailers, one example shows how technology can translate from ground to air travel. Trains with curved pipes that scooped water to refill reservoirs could be controlled from the train engine-cab without stopping, and mirrors the in-flight refueling systems that keep aircraft flying without the need to land. Although computers have replaced typewriters, word processing programs and web browsers justify text with similar algorithms.
This collection of useful information on "Common Things" is put in the interesting form of "Why and Because," and comprehends a familiar explanation of many subjects which occupy a large space in the philosophy of Nature, relating to air, animals, atmosphere, caloric, chemistry, ventilation, materia medica, meteorology, acoustics, electricity, light, zoölogy, etc.
Watkin Tench was an officer of the British Marines in the First Fleet to settle NSW. This is an interesting and entertaining account of his experiences during that time.
Shakespeare's plays are full of music: love songs, comic ditties, serious ballads, and songs for witches and spirits. Over the centuries musicians and composers have also created musical adaptations based on Shakespeare's plays. Composer Christopher Wilson's Shakespeare and Music (1922) documents the musical history of each play across various genres, including opera and incidental music.
Olive Green is the pseudonym for the prolific late 19th Century/early 20th Century author, Myrtle Reed. She wrote over thirty-three books and hundreds of magazine articles and pamphlets during her short lifetime. Ms. Reed was best known for writing romance novels that often included themes of everlasting and unrequited love, ironic revenge, mystery, and the occult. Her best known book is Lavender and Old Lace, which later became the basis for Arsenic and Old Lace.
Ms. Reed used the name Olive Green to write books and articles about domestic homemaking and cooking. Her cookbooks include How to Cook Fish, What to Have for Breakfast, and One Thousand Simple Soups. Myrtle Reed committed suicide in 1911 just after the publishing of her last novel, A Weaver of Dreams.
Her collection of stories about women who led important and independent lives, The Spinster Book.
In 1907 Wallace wrote the short book Is Mars Habitable? to criticize the claims made by Percival Lowell that there were Martian canals built by intelligent beings. Wallace did months of research, consulted various experts, and produced his own scientific analysis of the martian climate and atmospheric conditions. Among other things Wallace pointed out that spectroscopic analysis had shown no signs of water vapour in the Martian atmosphere, that Lowell's analysis of Mars's climate was seriously flawed and badly overestimated the surface temperature, and that low atmospheric pressure would make liquid water, let alone a planet girding irrigation system, impossible. (from Wikipedia)
"This book contains the record of a few of the many happy days and novel experiences which I have had in the wilds. For more than twenty years it has been my good fortune to live most of the time with nature, on the mountains of the West. I have made scores of long exploring rambles over the mountains in every season of the year, a nature-lover charmed with the birds and the trees. On my later excursions I have gone alone and without firearms. During three succeeding winters, in which I was a Government Experiment Officer and called the "State Snow Observer," I scaled many of the higher peaks of the Rockies and made many studies on the upper slopes of these mountains."
This address was delivered shortly after Mr. Darrow's triumphant acquittal on a charge growing out of his defense of the McNamaras at Los Angeles, California. The man, the subject and the occasion makes it one of the greatest speeches of our time. It is the hope of the publishers that this message of Mr. Darrow's may reach the millions of men, women and youth of our country, that they may see the labor problem plainer and that they may receive hope and inspiration in their efforts to make a better and juster world.
Archibald Geikie was a geologist in Scotland by profession, and a writer. While most of his writings were professional, this is a more personal book telling some of the history of Scotland, Archibald's memories, experiences and recollections there as well as stories he was told by people he met. He has a good sense of humour which shines through.
For more than three hundred years an intense desire has been felt by explorers to discover and reveal to the world the secrets of the immediate regions of the North Pole. Nor has this desire been confined to mere adventurers. This volume sketches the latest American efforts (from the second Grinnel expedition to that of the "Polaris"), second to no others in heroism and success, and abounding in instructive and intensely interesting adventures both grave and gay.
A charming brief account of a two months' autumnal stay on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. Howells, who was there with his family traveling from England to Italy, has a sharp eye not only for scenery and architecture, but for people and customs, both Swiss and foreign.
Jacob Abbott wrote many historical books for children. He was careful to ensure historical accuracy, and as he said himself in the preface to this book "Whatever of interest ... these stories may possess is due solely to the facts themselves which are recorded in them, and to their being brought together in a plain, simple, and connected narrative."
This is the story of Romulus, the founding of Rome and the early years of its history, written in a way both readable and enjoyable for adults and children alike.
Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, also known as James Albert, (born ca. 1705 - 1775) was a freed slave and autobiographer. His autobiography is considered the first published by an African in Britain. Gronniosaw's autobiography was produced in Kidderminster in the late 1760s. Its full title is A Narrative of the Most remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, As related by himself. It was the first Slave narrative in the English language. Published in Bath in 1772, it gives a vivid account of Gronniosaw's life, from his capture in Africa through slavery to a life of poverty in Colchester and Kidderminster. It is devoid of the anti-slavery backlash ubiquitous in subsequent slave narratives.
Thomas H. Huxley, an English biologist and essayist, was an advocate of the theory of evolution and a self-proclaimed agnostic. A talented writer, his essays helped to popularize science in the 19th century, and he is credited with the quote, "Try to learn something about everything and everything about something." In The Advance of Science in the Last Half Century, he presents a summary of the major developments in Physics, Chemistry and Biology during the period 1839-1889 and their impact on society, within the historical context of philosophical thought and scientific inquiry going back to Aristotle. Huxley’s clear and readable prose makes this subject equally enjoyable for both the student of scientific history and the casual listener alike.
Do you enjoy birdwatching? Would you like to learn a little more about the early conservations efforts to protect wild birds? In the Preface to The Bird Study Book, Pearson tells us “This book was written for the consideration of that ever-increasing class of Americans who are interested in acquiring a greater familiarity with the habits and activities of wild birds. Attention is also given to the relation of birds to mankind and the effect of civilisation on the bird-life of the country. ” An avid ornithologist, T. Gilbert Pearson (1873-1943) was a co-founder in 1905 of the National Association of Audubon Societies of which he was first secretary and then president for many years. He was also a pioneer of the conservation movement in the United States, international bird protection and broad nature education for school-aged children. (Audubon Magazine. 42: 370–371. Nov-Dec 1943)
Hannah Trager published Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago in 1926, so the book is a portrait of day to day life for a Jewish family in Jerusalem around 1876. In each chapter, Mr. Jacobs reads a letter from his cousins living in Jerusalem many years earlier, each one teaching his family and friends about a different holiday or tradition of their people.
Birdseye Views of Far Lands is an interesting, wholesome presentation of something that a keen-eyed, alert traveler with the faculty of making contrasts with all classes of people in all sorts of places, in such a sympathetic way as to win their esteem and confidence, has been able to pick up as he has roamed over the face of the earth for a quarter of a century.
The book is not a geography, a history, a treatise on sociology or political economy. It is a Human Interest book which appeals to the reader who would like to go as the writer has gone and to see as the writer has seen the conformations of surface, the phenomena of nature and the human group that make up what we call a "world."
The reader finds facts indicating travel and study set forth in such vigorous, vivid style that the attention is held by a story while most valuable information is being obtained. The casual reader, the pupil in the public school and student in the high school, professional men and women, will all find the book at once highly interesting and instructive. In no other book with which I am acquainted can so much that is interesting be learned of the world in so short time and in such a pleasing way.
Teachers in rural schools will find the book especially helpful. It will inspire the pupils in the upper grades in these schools to do some observation work themselves and to in this manner seek to learn their own localities better, while at the same time it will suggest the collection of materials about other countries, their peoples, products, characteristics and importance from sources other than text books.
Every rural school as well as every high school and public library in the land should have one or more copies of this book.
"The story of Joseph is at once so simple that childhood is arrested and rivetted by it, and so profound that sages may deepen their wisdom by meditating on the truths which it embodies. An attempt is here made to point out some of the more important lessons which the narrative teaches,—to manifest the wisdom and the watchfulness of Providence,—and show how God on high exercises his prerogative of educing good from what we are often tempted to regard as only and hopelessly evil. While man displays his wickedness by committing sin, the Holy One displays his goodness by restraining it; and though his ways are confessedly “a great deep,” we get glimpses through the gloom,—we catch echoes amid the silence, which enable us to know, that when the tangled web of providence shall have been unrolled in light, it will be seen that he “has done all things well.” As the bones of Joseph were carried before the Hebrews during all their wanderings, from Egypt to Canaan, till they found a resting-place in that land of promise, the truth of God here goes before us still, a very pillar of cloud and of fire."
Helen Ekin Starrett, journalist, mother of two daughters, grandmother of seven granddaughters and teacher to many young girls at the Starrett School for Girls offers lessons in life and religion to girls about to "pass out from the guardianship of home into life with its duties and trials".
"The subject of our policy on the North-West frontier of India is one of great importance, as affecting the general welfare of our Eastern Empire, and is specially interesting at the present time, when military operations on a considerable scale are being conducted against a combination of the independent tribes along the frontier. It must be understood that the present condition of affairs is no mere sudden outbreak on the part of our turbulent neighbours. Its causes lie far deeper, and are the consequences of events in bygone years". (From the author's Preface, 1897).
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) is universally regarded as one of the greatest authors in history. This brief biography discusses, among other things, Tolstoy's childhood, married life, contemporaries, travels, and his strongly held opinions concerning religion and class privilege. Individual chapters are devoted to War and Peace and Anna Karenina. The former, with its vivid character portrayals and great historical, political, and military insight, is considered by many to be the world's greatest novel. Another chapter is devoted to Tolstoy's other notable works, and the book concludes with a consideration of his lasting influence. The book, published in 1914, contains a bibliography listing works about and by Tolstoy. L. Winstanley was a lecturer in English at the University College at Wales. --Adapted by Lee Smalley
The words in this essay on positive thought sing like those in Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." The author praises joyous living and recommends certain routes to its attainment. He explores schooling (public secondary and the university), travel, and the study of nature as ways to stay buoyant during life's trials. He also praises the power of the arts (literature, music, painting, sculpture) to keep spirits soaring.
A compilation of chronicles of the numerous impostors and impostures of kings, queens, and rulers.
Volume 13 of The Chronicles of Canada Series. This volume sheds light on the often misunderstood Americans who chose to remain loyal to the Crown of England during and after the American Revolution. While the vast majority of American writings which detail the Revolution paint the Loyalists (sometimes called Tories) in the most negative fashion, this volume explains the reasons behind their election to flee to Canada (and other countries) rather than remain on American soil. While no exact numbers exist of Loyalists who fled to Canada in 1783-1784, the estimates of John Adams and others of the time period range in the vicinity of one third of the population, which places that number at about a million. These were not people who fled in fear, rather they were generally people who felt the benefit of support from the British Crown outweighed the support they would receive from the unproven social, financial, and political structures which had yet to be formed. Some were opportunists in search of free land. But all were a brave people who chose to leave the comfort of their homeland to help settle uncharted territories of what we now know as Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia; a people who held their heads high as they settled a largely untamed land.
No matter how enlightened, chances are you've been raised around superstitious lore of one kind or another. Fanny Dickerson Bergen was one of the original researchers of North American oral traditions relating to such key life events and experiences as babyhood and childhood, marriage, wishes and dreams, luck, warts and cures, death omens and mortuary customs, and "such truck," as Huck Finn would say.
You'll be surprised at how many of these old saws you'll know. Here's a quote from Chapter One, Babyhood:
Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is sour and sad,
Thursday’s child is merry and glad,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child must work for a living;
But the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is blithe and bonny, good and gay.
--Baldwinsville, N. Y.
All of these readings are as short as 5 minutes and no longer than 15 minutes, with plenty of pithy one-liners in the form of proverbs, always given with the locale they came from in Canada or the United States (with clear influences in British tradition).
California, the land of sunshine and roses, with its genial climate, its skies as blue as the far-famed skies of Venice, and its pure, life-giving air, invites the lover of nature to take long tramps over hill and dale, mountain and valley, and to search out new trails in the rugged mountains.(Quote from section 2: Brook and Waterfall).
An introduction to Arizona from approximately a century ago.
The Kybalion: Hermetic Philosophy is a 1908 book claiming to be the essence of the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, published anonymously by a group or person under the pseudonym of "the Three Initiates".
Arthur Schopenhauer, an early 19th century philosopher, made significant contributions to metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. His work also informed theories of evolution and psychology, largely through his theory of the will to power – a concept which Nietzsche famously adopted and developed. Despite this, he is today, as he was during his life, overshadowed by his contemporary, Hegel. Schopenhauer's social/psychological views, put forth in this work and in others, are directly derived from his metaphysics, which was strongly influenced by Eastern thought. His pessimism forms an interesting and perhaps questionable contrast with his obvious joy in self-expression, both in the elegance of his prose and in his practice of playing the flute nightly.
His brilliance, poetry, and crushing pessimism can be seen immediately in this work, as for example in this claim from the first chapter: "The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other." We see also, in this work, his misogyny, as for example in his claim that "as lions are provided with claws and teeth, and elephants and boars with tusks, . . . so Nature has equipped woman, for her defence and protection, with the arts of dissimulation; and all the power which Nature has conferred upon man in the shape of physical strength and reason, has been bestowed upon women in this form." Given his opening comment, the translator, T.B. Saunders, seems to have been at least somewhat sympathetic to this perspective.
The Book of Tea is as much about philosophy, religion and art as it is about a drink made with dried leaves in boiling water. It traces the development of tea into teaism. The author’s first paragraph summarizes the whole book:
“Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage. In China, in the eighth century, it entered the realm of poetry as one of the polite amusements. The fifteenth century saw Japan ennoble it into a religion of aestheticism--Teaism. Teaism is a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence. It inculcates purity and harmony, the mystery of mutual charity, the romanticism of the social order. It is essentially a worship of the Imperfect, as it is a tender attempt to accomplish something possible in this impossible thing we know as life.”
The author shows that the philosophy of Teaism, which was developed from Japanese Zen Buddhist teachings, actually has deeper roots in Chinese Confucianism and Taoism as well.
After its publication in 1906 The Book of Tea provided a window into Japanese culture, and furthered a better understanding and appreciation of the philosophy behind minimalism in Japanese art, architecture, design and living.
Public Opinion (1922), by Walter Lippman, is a critical assessment of functional democratic government, especially the irrational, and often self-serving, social perceptions that influence individual behavior, and prevent optimal societal cohesion.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are in themselves exceedingly brief, less than ten pages of large type in the original. Yet they contain the essence of practical wisdom, set forth in admirable order and detail. The theme, if the present interpreter be right, is the great regeneration, the birth of the spiritual from the psychical man: the same theme which Paul so wisely and eloquently set forth in writing to his disciples in Corinth, the theme of all mystics in all lands.
John Dewey, an early 20th Century American philosopher, psychologist, educational theorist, saw Social Psychology as much a physical science (with rules and predictive power) as Biology and Chemistry. This project encompasses Part 3 of 4 of his book Human Nature and Conduct. An Introduction to Social Psychology, published in 1922.Dewey's uses the words "HABIT" and "Impulse" as a specialized catch-all words to describe how a person and his/her objective environment interact. This interaction is the basis for moral and ethical judgments. Dewey writes: "All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self.” In other places he also asserts that "Habits are Will." In this third part of the book, Dewey describes how we make ethical judgments (Dramatic Rehearsal), the occasions which call upon the exercise of intelligence, and the relationship among aims, goals, means and ends, and emotions. ~ Summary by William Allan Jones, Soloist
The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison with the second (Malthus).
In The Concept of Nature, Alfred North Whitehead discusses the interrelatedness of time, space, and human perception.
The idea of objects as 'occasions of experience', arguments against body-mind duality and the search for an all-encompassing 'philosophy of nature' are examined, with specific reference to contemporary (Einstein, with whose theory of relativity he has some complaints) and ancient (Plato, Aristotle) approaches.
Underhill’s definition of mysticism, her exploration of the stages of spiritual progress along the mystical path, and her argument about the practical application of mysticism for ordinary people.
Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, philosopher, visual artist, playwright, composer, and novelist whose work reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He became Asia’s first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Sadhana is a collection of essays, most of which he gave before the Harvard University, describing Indian beliefs, philosophy and culture from different viewpoints, often making comparison with Western thought and culture.
Buccaneers is non-fiction, a very readable history of how piracy began and spread throughout the region in response to Spanish colonialism. It also features a very cool website version of Buccaneers and Pirates that has an antique map of the Caribbean which is a nice reference for readers and listeners for islands' names, ports, hideaways, buried treasure, and such like. If you liked Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, you'd best sign on board for this voyage!
From 1884 until 1891, James Berry was an executioner. In this time he carried out 131 hangings. In this memoir he writes about the methods he used, and the final moments of some of those he executed.
The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a major literary achievement of the 18th century published in six volumes, was written by the celebrated English historian Edward Gibbon. Volume I was published in 1776, and went through six printings (a remarkable feat for its time). Volumes II and III were published in 1781; volumes IV, V, VI in 1788-89. The original volumes were published as quartos, a common publishing practice of the time.The books cover the period of the Roman Empire after Marcus Aurelius, from just before 180 to 1453 and beyond, concluding in 1590. They take as their material the behavior and decisions that led to the decay and eventual fall of the Roman Empire in the East and West, offering an explanation for why the Roman Empire fell.Gibbon is sometimes called the first “modern historian of ancient Rome.” By virtue of its mostly objective approach and highly accurate use of reference material, Gibbon’s work was adopted as a model for the methodologies of 19th and 20th century historians.